I have slid back into the pit. It's sad how this happens. Unexpected, slippery, mean. I forget sometimes how near I live to the precipice until I fall in, and then the battle starts over again. Depression is not a party game. I liken it to poison that spreads through my body and makes it difficult for me to breathe.
I went to New York last week with my friend Nalini, who was excited to share an adventure with me and to encourage me to take care of myself. What's not to enjoy? But somehow, I ended up sad to the last fiber of my body, tears pouring down my face, wanting to die, sitting in the center of Times Square just before midnight. It's amazing how being in the middle of people can make me feel like such a non-human.
I was reading Von's post over at Lost Daughters today, and was immediately struck by this sentence:
"Adoptees too may not always understand the triggers and as most of you can state from your own experience, they arrive unbidden, unexpectedly and unsurprisingly when we sometimes least expect it or are prepared for it."
I couldn't have said it better myself. I should have been enjoying myself, with a dear friend, and yet I was a complete mess. [I did manage to love The Book of Mormon, which cheered me up no end. Thanks, Trey and Matt. Now if only I could learn to do the following.]
What is going on with me? Rationally, I look at my life and I have done very well for myself--on the surface. But there is still that massive black hole called depression: yes, it has a genetic component, and yes, adoption is hellaciously involved in its exacerbations. Then another friend tells me that it's because I've educated myself within an inch of my life and carry those scars with me, too. You don't survive graduate school at Berkeley with its beatings and not have damage. Moreover, no one wants to hear me babble on about literature and art. Well, pretty much nobody. I could tease out a thousand reasons why things suck. And still it just hurts. Maybe it's the Topamax talking. It does cause suicidal thoughts in 1 in 500 people. That would be my luck.
So I have been curled up in the fetal position for about four days, wondering why I was ever born, wishing I hadn't been, and thinking it's all been a huge fucking cosmic mistake. The world would have been a better place without me: my mother would have been happier, I would have been happier not to bear the burden of eternal rejection, etc. Of course, my friends and family feel insulted when I speak this way, but there is no rationality in madness. It just is. I can fake things for a while, and then it all becomes too much of an act. It's hard work to pretend to be happy. And no, I don't want my cross in life to be bearing the burden of rejection. It fucking sucks. It doesn't make me a better person to "rise above" it. I am tired. Wake me up when there's a pill that helps make you impervious to rejection.
One more thing before I resume the fetal position: over at FMF, someone wrote in the comments that "on a [rejection] scale of one to ten I rate the experience of being given up for adoption a fifteen." I wholeheartedly concur.
9 comments:
Maybe it is the alignment of the stars…I am right about there with ya, sister. I will be skating along holding it together and then it hits me…I ain’t got no real family. I hate when that happens. I hope you find yourself on the other side of it soon.
I too have had times when I felt I never wanted to get out of bed and would have preferred to remain in the foetal position until death came for me.It was the effects of a difficult, damaging relationship being impacted by my adoption stuff or the other way round.
I discovered over the years that despite having no choice at the beginning I do have choice now and I exercise that choice whenever I can, sometimes just to remind myself I have it and how valuable it is.
It really does sound as if your meds may not be helping? Is it possible to have a new look at it?
Please feel free to email or message me if you just want to/are able to chat/vent/rage/whatever is ok.
Thanks, Sunday and Von.
I am seeing my hepatologist tomorrow for a procedure and will tell him about my acute onset suicidal ideation and see what he thinks about lowering my dose of Topamax. It seems like a good place to start.
And I did have a good friend call me out of the blue this afternoon to tell me that she's right next to me on the cliff. She said, "I'm not going anywhere, the cliff's not going anywhere, so you're not alone." That helped.
It's the energy-sapping horror of it all that's the worst.
Yes,it's just not there and so hard to change anything, even socks when it's like that.xx
I know your family and friends can't hear that because to them, the world is a much better, much more beautiful, and more vibrant place with you in it. Because you are so wonderful and feeling and present to them it is hard to see deeply into your despair. I wish this to pass, for you to find more solid ground, and soon. I wish I had know you were here, if only to meet you and hold you up.
I hear you my friend. Like you, I too have done very well for myself, all things considered. And you know I enjoy hearing about art and literature. I totally want you to be my tour guide at the Louvre next time I'm in Paris. And yes I'm serious.
You are a beautiful, highly intelligent, kind,and compassionate person, and I'm proud to call you my friend.
Take care of yourself, and I'm sorry I missed your call today and couldn't be there for you. But I'm here now. xoxoxo
Hi there,
I enjoy your blog, being of the same age as you, having a first cousin who was adopted away from my family (of also our same age), and some other BSE-era similarities. I had to comment when I saw your sentence about grad school at Berkeley. I got my PhD in Chemistry there in 1996 and totally understand what you said about grad school there. They tear you down to a worthless-feeling nothing in order to start building you afresh in their image, which I also found to be a very damaging and life-defining experience. So I just wanted to say I understand how that contributes to your overall feeling.. Your blog is great and I'm glad to get a chance to hear the feelings of an adoptee that's the same age as me and my cousin. It's helped me understand his feelings a lot more. Thanks for writing, even in the difficult times. Best wishes, Lisa B.
Thank you, Trish and Lisa, for your support. Trish, I hope I get to meet you IRL one day. I would love to talk and give you a hug. Lisa, I can tell you really, really get it about both the "a" word and Berkeley hell. Lines in Sproul Hall, Grad Division nightmares, and advisers who don't really care who you are as a person. Don't *want* to know. Ugh. So yes, we have a "prestigious" degree, but we weren't encouraged to think differently at all. It's a very, very entrenched place. Mario Savio would be disgusted if he could see it now.
Ah, Berkeley...I remember those lines...and you pretty much described my research advisor to a T (I think he maybe had some vague idea that we were people). Yeah...it was soup-to-nuts "challenges." The whole place was like an obstacle course for masochists. If the lines in Sproul didn't get you, then something else would (the Rodney King riots, east bay hills fires, roachy food at Kip's, abusive bums with green hair, and of course lack of money from that tiny grad school stipend). As much as I hate the attitude of the place, I'm a little grateful in retrospect for its extremeness. After making it through that program I have never doubted the fact that I'm tough. No matter what life throws at me, I know that I hung in there and conquered the challenges just as well as the brightest, hardest working people in my field. Having that "validation" is a blessing sometimes when I question myself. Of course it could also just be my way of trying to put a positive spin on it all, or even Stockholm syndrome (ha ha). But I hope you also get strength from knowing that you handled Berkeley...you've gotta be pretty damn tough too! Be proud of that :-) Cheers, Lisa
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